of the same kind none is nobler than
Lowell's _Commemoration Ode_. Short lyrics, among which are songs and
sonnets, can be found in the works of almost every poet of note,
whether English or American. Under the head of epic or narrative
poetry are included long productions like the _Iliad_ and the _Odyssey_
of Homer and the _Paradise Lost_ of Milton, and shorter poems, such as
Coleridge's _Ancient Mariner_ and _Longfellow's _Evangeline_. Indeed,
every piece of verse that tells a story, however short it may be,
belongs with the epics or narratives. Dramatic poetry includes
well-known plays like Shakespeare's _Merchant of Venice_ and _Julius
Caesar_, and also certain poems not written for the stage, such as
Browning's _Pippa Passes_ and Shelley's _Prometheus Unbound_. In a
dramatic production the poet goes out of himself for the time being,
and expresses the thoughts and feelings of other characters.

It may have been noticed that in this description of the principal
kinds of poetry, only three of the poems included in this book have
been mentioned. This is because the other three--_The Traveller_, _The
Deserted Village_, and _The Cotter's Saturday Night_--do not fit
exactly into any of the divisions. One would class them with the epics
rather than with the lyrics or the dramas, but they are not properly
narratives, because they tell no story; they are really descriptive and
reflective poems. One often comes upon a difficulty of this kind when
attempting to classify a poem, and the truth is that several smaller
divisions are necessary if every production is to be placed where it
belongs. But while it is desirable to know whether one is reading a
lyric, an epic, or a drama, it is far more important to enjoy a
beautiful poem than to be able properly to classify it.

The following list may prove useful to those who wish to know more of
the poets represented in this volume than can be learned from the short
sketches of their lives which it includes:

J. R. Green: _Short History of the English People_; Stopford Brooke:
_English Literature_; Frederick Ryland: _Chronological Outlines of
English Literature_; Edmund Gosse: _A History of Eighteenth-Century
Literature_; _Dictionary of National Biography_ (British); G.
Saintsbury: _Dryden_ (English Men of Letters Series); James Russell
Lowell: essay on Dryden in _Among my Books_, vol. i; W. L. Phelps:
_Gray_ (Athenaeum Press Series); Matthew Arnold: essay on Gray in
_Essa